It's not often that an anthology can boast, at least for this reader, that most of its stories are...good. almost every one of them rates a minimum of 3 stars, and quite a few were 4 stars, a couple Even approaching 5 stars!

P.156: from "Waging Good," by Robert Reed:
"the bug had belonged to his family, too old to use and not fancy enough to refurbish. She remembered darkness and the scent of old flowers. 'you brought me here -'
'- for sex, as I remember it." Varner laughed and glanced at the others, Seemingly asking them to laugh with him. 'how old where we?'
Too young, she recalled. The experience had been clumsy, and except for the fear of being caught, she'd had little fun. Why did anyone bother with sex? She would ask herself that For weeks. Even when she was old enough, screwing Varner and most of her other male friends, part of Sitta Remained the doubtful child, the fun of it Merely fun, just another little pleasure to be squeezed into long days and nights of busy idleness."
P.169:
"tens of thousands live together, few of whom could be called old by Farside standards. Children outnumbered adults, except they weren't genuine children. They reminded Sitta of 5 and 6 year old adults, working in the fields and tiny factories, worldly in all things, including their play. The most popular game was a pretend funeral. They used wild rats, skinning them just as human bodies were skinned, pulling out organs to be transplanted into other rats, just as humans harvested whatever they could use from their own dead, implanting body parts with the help of primitive autodocs, dull knives, and weak laser beams.
"by law, each district in the city had one funeral each day. 1 or fifty bodies - skinned, and if clean enough, emptied of liver, kidneys and hearts - were buried in a single ceremony, always at dusk, always as the blister - colored sun-touched the remote Horizon. There was never more than one hole to dig and refill. Terrans were wonders at digging Graves. They always knew where to sink them and how deep, then just what words to say Over The Departed, and the best ways to comfort a woman from farside who insisted on taking death personally."

P.250: from "Sunday Night Yams with Minnie and Earl," by Adam-Troy Castro:
"I tried to turn the conversation back to where he was from, but somehow I didn't get a chance, because that's when Minnie took me by the hand and dragged me over to the wall of family photos. There were pictures of them smiling on the couch, pictures of them lounging together in the backyard, pictures of them standing proudly before their home. There were a large number of photos that used Earth as a backdrop. Only four photos showed them with other people, all from the last century: in one, they sat at their dining table with a surprised looking Neil Armstrong and buzz Aldrin; in another, they sat on their porch swing chatting with Carl Sagan; in a third, Minnie was being enthusiastically hugged by Isaac Asimov; the fourth showed Earl playing the upright piano while Minnie sat beside him and a tall, thin blond man with androgynous features and two differently colored eyes serenaded them both. The last figure was the only one I didn't recognize immediately; by the time somebody finally clued me in, several visits later, I would be far too jaded to engage in the spit-take it would have merited any other time."

P.297: from "Stories for Men," by John Kessel:
" 'there's a solar storm warning,' Erno said. 'aren't you worried?'
'we're not going to be out long.'
'I was at the meeting,'Erno said.
'I saw you,' Tyler said. 'cute girl, the dark-skinned one. Watch out. You know what they used to say on Earth?'
'what?'
'if women didn't have control of all the pussy, they'd have bounties on their heads.'
Erno laughed. 'how can you say that? They're our sisters, our mothers.'
'and they still have control of all the pussy.' "
P.324:
" 'women shit on you, and you don't care.'
'There are women just like me. We have what we want. I work. I read. I grow my plants. I have no desire to change the world. The world works for me.
'The genius of the founders, Erno --' Micah opened another drawer and started on the next rack of tomatoes, ' - was that they minimized the contact of males and females. They made it purely voluntary. Do you realize how many centuries men and women tore them self to pieces through forced intimacy? In every marriage, the decades of lying that paid for every week of pleasure? That the vast majority of men and women, when they spoke honestly, regretted the day they had ever married?' "

P.375: from "You Will Go to the Moon," by William Preston:
" 'they recommend only a month at a time," he said. 'anymore, and you can't get insured, due to the radiation. Plus, you'd be stupid. I mean, you won't turn stupid, which is what one guy I know thinks, he won't come up here for anything, but you'd be stupid to do that to your genes.'
'too much damage.'
'yeah." He faced forward as he talked, letting his head roll my way every sentence or so to catch my eyes, then rolling back. He didn't talk loudly, probably out of deference to his sleeping companion. 'now, I've had my kids, have three kids, so it's not like I'm damaging genetic inheritance. But cancer's a risk. That'd take a longer exposure, and the safety regs are pretty conservative.'
'but what about the people living there?'
'the shielding's not useless. But it's not like it really blocks much. Some rays pour right on through. Human exposure's never been tested, and now that you can't test animals, it's a bit of a crapshoot. That's why people don't spend more than a few months up there. It's a stepping stone to better work back on the big Blue marble. Even for the administrators. Though I'll tell you, they've got experimental shielding on the quarters of some bigwigs. The government people especially. I helped install some last year.'
'my parents... ' I said but didn't know how to finish the thought. They'd been there half a year already.
'How old are they?' I told him. 'see, again, it's not like they're going to have more kids. Nobody in the retirement facilities is. I mean, I suppose something bizarre could happen, but nobody's planning for kids. And people are pretty old, most of them older than your parents. The low grav feels good. The radiation... I'm repeating myself, but it's a crapshoot.
'in any case,' he said, 'they can't leave now.' I waited for him to turn my way again. When he did, he saw that I didn't follow his thinking.
'you know.'
'maybe I don't,' I said.
'their muscles. They couldn't handle Earth gravity now. It's been too long, or it's pretty near to too long. You lose muscle mass, I don't care how much you work out. And your bones get fragile, like bird bones. Your heart, that's the big one. It gets accustomed to pumping on the moon. You take it back to Earth...' He saw I hadn't thought about any of this; his eyes had trouble rising to mine. 'well, they'd probably not survive the trip.' "





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Rating of 4.85 ( )